home is where the hearth is.

Once upon a time, not so very long ago, there lived an imp named Flicker. Flicker was small for her kind, and though she possessed all of the outward appearances of impishness, inside she felt different. Flicker longed to be mortal, like the humans she enjoyed spying upon when she was creeping through the dancing flames of a fireplace, or silently sitting in the ashes of an almost-burnt-out campfire left by some gypsies. To her, mortal life held promises and excitement, much more than the sooty life she was accustomed to. Flicker generally spent her days crouched under a stockpot that the farmer's wife was boiling stew in, hoping for a bit to spill over so that she could have a piece of blackened carrot or tasty meat, or if she was feeling mischevious, kicking coals at the farm cat that would crouch by the fire, watching her hungrily. Flicker possessed the ability to go anywhere she wanted, provided there was a fire of some kind, but she felt an odd affinity for the simple farm house and its simple mortal tenants. The farmer, his wife, and his odd gaggle of wild children were her family when the fire was lit, or a candle was burning by a bedside at night, and she cherished her moments with them.

 

One cold winter day, as Flicker was having a stare-down with the cat, and the farmer's wife was readying loaves of bread to put in the brick oven, a knock came at the door. The wife sighed loudly and wiped her flour-covered hands on the front of her apron as she went over to see who could possibly be visiting in this weather.

Flicker crept to the edge of the fireplace, keeping one eye on the cat and another on the woman's back as she tried to see who exactly stood on the stoop.

As the door opened, the farmer's wife gasped and dropped into a coarse curtsey, mumbling something about her liege, and Flicker danced angrily around trying to get a look. The woman abruptly stood up and backed into the house, ushering a snow-covered, cloaked figure that Flicker couldn't identify.

As the figure unwrapped the cloak from around his body, Flicker finally got the glimpse she was waiting for, and what a glimpse it was. The man was tall and well-dressed, and as the wife stumbled all over herself to take his cloak and hang it by the fire to dry, he smiled in such a way that Flicker felt herself wanting to warm the man herself.

Still smiling, the man asked the woman if he couldn't possibly have something warm to drink, and if she wouldn't mind if he warmed himself a bit by the fire. The wife seemed taken aback, but hurried to the pantry to fetch a cup and the jar of tea she kept for special occasions.

"I was hunting with my men in the forest," he told the wife as he watched her bustling around the kitchen, "when a bird flew out of the bushes and spooked my mount."

The wife nodded to him, as she watched him pull a chair near the fire and motioned him to continue.

"I was so far away from the rest of my party that when Bergamot threw me, no one knew what happened. Damned horse ran off, probably all the way to the castle."

Smiling, the man accepted the cup that the woman offered him and continued. "Good thing your farm is so close to the forest, or I might have been wandering around out there for hours."

"Yes, Milord," the wife replied as she stood there, nervously pulling at the edges of her apron. Boldly she offered, "My husband, Brad, he says it is better to farm out here, where we aren't always under the watchful eyes of the crown." Then she blushed to the roots of her scalp as she remembered exactly to whom she was speaking.

The man laughed loudly and took a drink of tea. "Yes, indeed it is. Indeed it is." He motioned her to continue whatever she was up to before his arrival and pulled a pipe from a pocket of his cloak. "And please, call me Cambol, as I am not quite your liege yet, not for a long time to come."

The woman nodded and went over to where she had been putting the final touches on the loaves of bread she was readying for the oven. "Milor'... Cambol, I regret that my husband could not be here to talk with you while I go about my tasks. He has taken our girls with him to the market to buy some supplies, as shouldn't be back until at least tomorrow morning."

"Yes, it's always nice to meet the good people of Mayfair," he said, lighting his pipe with a twig from the fire.

Flicker was astonished by this man, this liege Cambol. She had crouched in the flames when he came near the fire, and she sat there staring at him with rapt adoration. The cat had run into the other room when the man had seated himself, so she forgot about fearing the whiskered menace, and focused all of her attentions on the new mortal.

He was tall and willowy, quite unlike Farmer Brad, who was stocky and strong from tilling fields all day long, and had fair skin and deep mahogany hair that fell around his face, nearly obscuring his features as he had spoken. He reminded Flicker of one of Queen Maeve's elven consorts, and was glad that she had found this Cambol before her queen had.

Cambol finished drinking his tea and stood up slowly, tapping the ashes from his pipe into the fireplace, then placing it back into his pocket. "I wish I could stay for some of the bread you are making, good lady," he said, watching the woman blush again, "But I fear my men will be looking for me, and we don't want to draw any attention to your little haven here."

"No, Cambol, sir," the woman replied and set the loaves in the oven, "I suppose it's best if we aren't well known. Brad would most likely be unhappy if we got to be too well known."

The man smiled again, and the the wife for her fire and for her kindness, and took his cloak down from where it had hung by the hearth, wrapping it around himself. Thanking the woman again, he went out the door and carefully close it behind him, squinting into the snow as he walked across the ground and towards the woods.

 

Flicker shivered in the wintery air and mentally berated herself for her silly whim to follow this new mortal to wherever he planned to go. 'Imps belong in fireplaces, not in cloak pockets,' she berated herself and hoped she didn't freeze before they reached their final destination. Carefully, she willed a little bit of flame at her tiny fingertip and burned a small peephole through the cloak, and looked out.

All she could see was white on the ground, and grimly she thought of a warm fire with plenty of sooty ashes in which to dance merrily around. Shivering, she curled up in the pocket next to the pipe and wished she was home. 'What a stupid imp am I,' she grumbled, and struggled to stay awake. 'So cold. Oh, so very cold.'

 

Cambol trudged back through the woods towards where he imagined his horse had thrown him, and was pleased to find Bergamot waiting dutifully nearby, with his full companion of men.

"Milord! Where have you been?" they all burst out at once, looking vaguely uncomfortable at their lapse in duty.

Cambol grinned to himself as he swung up into Bergamot's saddle. "Nowhere and everywhere," he replied mysteriously, watching their befuddled faces as he turned his mount around and waited for his men to saddle up and lead him back home and out of the bitterly cold forest.

Later that evening, as his manservant Geoffroy was dressing him for bed, he smiled as he stood in front of the fireplace, reminiscing about the nice little homestead on the outskirts of the forest. What a simple and pleasant place it had been, quite uncomplicated and rather wholesome, definitely unlike the bustling palace and the life expected of the heir-apparent.

As he stood there, Geoffroy cleared his throat and caught his prince's eye. "Sir, your cloak seems to be ruined," he said, as he held up the garment and pointed to a small burnt hole near the pocket.

"The pocket is full of ashes as well. Shall I have it mended?" he asked, and when Cambol nodded, took it into the other room, reminding himself to take it to the castle seamstress in the morning.

Cambol sighed to himself. "Must have caught a spark from the fire. Ah well, it will be as good as new soon enough," he said, as he climbed into his bed, blowing out the candle on the bedside stand.

The moral, you ask? Keep to your element. Remember, that home is where the hearth is.

colour commentary.

You will find that a lot of what I write is very self-referential and semi-autobiographical. I guess that I use a creative outlet to vent frustration and heartache rather than a violent one. Although, I do admit that at times the idea of hunting down some jerk or other and giving him the whatfor is VERY tempting...

This story is copyrighted by me, 1997.